Go Beyond Uncertainty To A Quiet Mind GF Live 7-19-25

Key Lesson #1: Learn to answer the true need of the moment by attending only to what it asks of you — and, inseparable from this new intention, to drop any troubled question posed by a disquieted mind that can’t see, let alone realize, how it disturbs itself seeking relief from its own unrest!

Transcript

I think we'll see it as we study our material that one of the reasons we're so uncomfortable as most of us are with silence or perhaps just simply with nothing at hand or in mind to be identified with is because in those moments we don't have what a certain sleeping part of us requires in order to feel secure and certain about itself. It's a funny thing, You don't have to look in a mirror, Well most of us don't, You don't have to look in a mirror to know that you exist. And yet in one respect we're always looking in the mirror of thought for a distinct sense of ourselves that we are so habitually identified with that unless we're looking into this mirror of thought where it seems to be that which I am considering and that I need to be certain about and the sense of self that is dependent upon that image, That idea, That thought for its certainty, We don't understand certain things about that consciousness and we're going to look at it deeply today. So let's get into it first and foremost. I know that we don't like talking about suffering, But I will also tell you that until you are willing to entertain the fact that the vast majority of your suffering, Of my suffering, Has done not one thing to change us or to make the world better, But rather has further separated us, Isolated us, In the false understanding responsible for that suffering. And this is what I want to look at, At least lightly with you, To know that there is a certain kind of constant inner conflict that all of us feel, That we have no suspicion as to the source of that suffering, Of that conflict. And the source of that suffering, The source of that conflict, Is that we wake up every morning, We go through our days, We lay in bed at night, Searching back through events, Because there is a part of us that never stops looking for a way to feel certain. By the way, To feel certain means to know without a doubt that all is well. And so there is a part of us that is always looking to find a moment, A relationship with life where all is well, And that isn't anything wrong with this need that we have to know that all is well, To be a part of all that is well. The problem lies with where we look for this sense of certainty. That's where the problem lies. Not in the need of it, Not for the love of it, But rather that our mind, The moment we wake up, And I ask you to see this with me, What is my mind doing when I wake up if it isn't waking up from a fitful night's sleep? Why does the mind have a fitful night? Because it's all unsettled. It can't find security. It can't find the certainty, A certain bed of conscious confidence, Because it is always looking in the wrong place for the wrong thing. We seek certainty by comparison. Just listen. We compare what we know about how things should be in any given moment to what that moment is giving us. And difficult as it is to see in scale, It isn't just the conditions that we see as being thrown at us that disturb us because they're not complicit with what we believe is required if we're going to feel certain about our life and about ourselves. But for the very fact that this comparison never stops, Because I can be sitting here having a cup of coffee, And a thought will pass through my mind about something that I hope will take place tomorrow. Now, As this mind invests itself in the image of what it hopes takes place tomorrow, It feels certain. It has a certain sense of confidence. It trusts that it will take place as imagined. But the mind that imagines tomorrow has an unimaginable part to itself, That the moment it imagines what tomorrow should be like, It then thinks, But what if it's not going to be like that? What if he doesn't do that? What if this doesn't unfold the way I've imagined it? So the very source of my certainty, Born out of a sense of self, Identified with an image, That very certainty, That sense of myself, Then becomes the source of my uncertainty. Because given what I expect, I am identified and dependent, Actually attached to that sense of self that believes those conditions have to unfold the way they're imagined as unfolding. And if they don't, Then all hell is going to break loose. And eventually, As we know all too well, Life is so quick to contradict our expectations, Just throw us into a holding pattern. How many of you like holding patterns? And when that happens, When conditions contest what we are identified with in order to feel certain about ourselves in life, When conditions contest that, What happens? We both know. We're thrown into uncertainty. Fear, For us, Is a sense of uncertainty based in being thrown into a kind of mishmash of thoughts and feelings, Reactions, All of which are telling us that the ground that we were standing on, And listen, The ground we were standing on, What ground was I standing on when I was sitting here looking at a letter someone wrote that was making me feel good about myself? And then I get a text message from someone else about something else, And all that confidence, All that certainty out the window, And what happens? Now I've got to go look for it. I got to go. Have you ever gone back? I caught a temptation yesterday. Have you ever gone back to look at a photograph or a letter that someone wrote you? It seemed innocent enough, Didn't it? But why would I go back literally into the past, Not to mention into the image of myself as projected by that letter or that photograph, My relationship? Why would I go back there? Unless something in me was going, I don't feel so certain right now. I don't feel that confident right now. I feel a little insecure. I know what I'll do. I'll revisit the past. And there's no you that revisits the past. You can't revisit the past. But a mind that had found a certainty in one set of conditions is rocked by the smallest breeze of any bitter thought or feeling. And in that moment, It needs to go and reassert, Redefine itself according to this that it can rely on in order to feel certain and secure about itself. So what are we going to look at? We're going to look at the source of this constant unrest. We may not think to ourselves that we are not at peace when we're having our coffee or out with friends and all the rest of that. And no one would contest that we can't have a nice time and have a certain sense of certainty, Security, Because we're kind of flowing along with what the moment is bringing. But the minute somebody throws a little rock into that stream of whatever those circumstances are, We all know what happens. No one else is having this upset, But I'm sitting there and thrown back into the past, Judging you, Worrying about myself. Am I an idiot for having said this? And our certainty turns into uncertainty and it vacillates back and forth and back and forth. This is what we're going to look at. We're going to look at a certain journey. We're going to look at a way in which our life unfolds in a series of movements that we're not aware of at all. And that the first part of this uncertainty that we are revisited with over and over again actually belongs to a false certainty. I'm going to look at it together. This false certainty inevitably gives rise to uncertainty. What is this false certainty that gives rise to uncertainty? It is that we are so conditioned, We have no sense at all that our mind, That we believe we know what our life is meant to do, Who we're meant to be, How to protect ourselves from what threatens us, So that though it's not present to us, In the background playing like some strange haunting melody, There's this belief that we know what's going on. I know how things are and I know how they should be. I know how you are. I know how you should be. I know what the news should tell me. I know what the news shouldn't report. And so any moment in which this certainty, Which my sense of self is derived from, Is rocked by some unexpected condition in that same moment, Because the condition changes, Out the window goes that sense of security, That certainty I had. And when that certainty and that security goes out the window, Now I'm in the hands of what is uncertain. And when I'm in the hands of uncertain, What do we do? The mind thrown back to see that the ground it was standing on was really just imagined, Then begins to imagine a new ground, A new path, A new plan. And as the mind, That mind comes up with the image and the desire connected to it to restore this lost certainty, Lo and behold, A new form, A new sense of identity is derived from it. And as this identity is derived from the next image, The consciousness involved in that relationship can't see that it is looking for certainty in the exact same process that produced the pain of the uncertainty that it's trying to escape and that it can never do. So that we move from false certainty to uncertainty. And I can't stand uncertainty. And the fact, If you can see it with me, That we can't stand uncertainty is that we would rather rest inside of a conflicted nature, Believing that it actually knows why things are the way they are and what it needs to do to fix them. We'd rather rest in the certainty of our suffering than to go through a new kind of suffering that requires recognizing that the vacillation of these opposites, Of false certainty into uncertainty, Has been with us and with human consciousness since the beginning of time. And we have failed to see, As Christ said, You can't serve two masters. You'll love one and despise the other. You can't serve false certainty without serving uncertainty. And until they are seen together, We will never recognize that on one hand, As I said, There's a natural part of us that wants to rest, That wants to be at rest in an unchallenged, So to speak, Sense of self that knows regardless whether certainty and uncertainty vacillate, That there is something deeper still that sits beneath it, And that that is what we seek. A new kind of certainty that isn't born of knowledge, But that is born out of a conscious relationship with what I call the presence moment. A new certainty that isn't born of knowledge. Try and see this with me. What does that mean? A new certainty not born of knowledge? Well, What is my certainty based on? What I think is and should be the way life rolls. That sense of self is derived from what I know, But what I know is false. And the way I know that what I know is false is that it always reveals eventually through some form of suffering that that knowledge was incomplete and couldn't possibly provide the certainty I was looking for. But this mind can't see that. What this mind sees is that that knowledge was incomplete. In quotes, I didn't learn my lesson. I'll be different next time. That's what it always says. And then it lays out a completely new plan, A new trail for you to follow of thoughts and feelings that as we identify with them, Lo and behold, Certainty flows back into us like a tide rushing up to the shore. But this certainty quickly proves to be a false certainty, Doesn't it? People, Plans, Conditions, Whatever it is that we've counted on, And we know what that means, Suddenly they, This or that fail our expectations. Gosh, Today wasn't supposed to be like this. I wasn't supposed to wake up feeling this way. So I suffer my resistance to how I feel when I awoke. Why? Because whatever I awoke with wasn't certain the way I hoped the day would unfold. Instead, I met with things that seemed to be coming unglued. And so now suddenly I'm disoriented. And in that disorientation, I seek some new ground to stand on, A new north star. And what do I do? This mind finds another thing to believe in, Another fragment of our past, But not my past in the sense of a personal life, But our past in terms of this tremendous reliance that we have on deriving our identity from some familiar thought, Some familiar sense of self so that the whole of our life is predicated on trying to keep that in place. And when something threatens that place, Pain comes. When pain comes, We just get caught back up in the same cycle. I hope you're able to follow me. This is why there is this incessant need, Is there not, To explain to ourselves what just happened, To analyze it. How many times will you explain to yourself why you feel the way you do and believe that the next time you feel that way, The subsequent explanation is actually going to bring an end to the uncertainty in that suffering, In that sense of self. The mind that you listen to as it talks to itself, As it's explaining to itself that you believe is you is doing so it can restore certainty to itself. Something challenged its assumption, Its expectation. And the moment that that mind and what it is identified with, That image or belief relative to that expectation, The moment that that expectation is challenged, The mind has to explain to itself what happened, Because that isn't how it wrote the story. That isn't how it sees things going. So then what does it do? It takes the whole, Which is crazy. It thinks, It takes the whole experience. And it thinks that it can analyze it and reduce that experience into something that it can control. Because if it can reduce the experience into a single thought, A single set of thoughts that makes perfect sense, Given what it knows, If it can reduce all of that into something that is malleable, Something that it can put in its hands, Then it's got control again. Now it's in charge of what it lost its sense of self to the moment before. And so that mind actually believe it's reasserting control over reality. And it's reasserting control over reality so that that sense of certainty can be restored. And I don't know how long that has to go before a person realized, Wait a minute, Reality can't be captured by a thought. This conflict can't be contained by simply changing the content in the arena where this struggle is taking place. And innumerable experience proves that inevitably something is going to come along and challenge whatever this certainty is that I am momentarily identified with. It's going to prove that certainty and that sense of self to be an illusion. And when it does, All I do is go back into the theater, Dream up a new illusion, This nature does so that it can at least feel like everything's going to work out tomorrow. The mind, It reacts this way. It wants to free itself from its own shakiness. And it does that by reestablishing as I hope you're being able to follow me and see the familiar sense of self. I had this sense of myself, Everything was going to go this way. You were going to be like that. This was going to unfold like this mostly. And then nothing like that happens. Often, Quite the opposite takes place. And when it does, How can my sense of self, My true nature be shaken to the core by a set of passing conditions that in and of themselves have no authority over consciousness, But rather consciousness, Real consciousness is intended to be able to use those conditions so that it can find in that constant reestablishment of that relationship of understanding the reason that we feel the way we do to transcend the unwanted feelings born out of that never-ending visitation of uncertainty. Are you following me? Can you, From your own experience, See how when something doesn't go the way you want it to go, This mind, It reduces that moment into a single, What, A single mental snapshot. It's just like that. There's the problem. And in a heartbeat, My mind is in the dark room. My mind is suddenly in the dark room, Developing in the dark, The next image that'll come out of that is a liquid that, And then it'll hold up that image and it'll go, Ah, That's it. Now I know what happened. I know what to do. And I'm taking control back of my life. And I've spent 20 minutes now looking at this cycle with you so that we can move to where it is that I hope that we can see together is the only possibility. If we are ever going to find this deeper certainty that we seek. As difficult as it is to understand, Certainty cannot be the result of a set of conditions. As difficult as it is to understand, Certainty can never be the result of conditions. And the reason it can never be the result of conditions is because conditions never stop changing. And if we understand that this set of circumstances, These conditions that we have imagined and then derived our sense of self, It's security from these conditions, We can see that if anything comes along and changes those conditions, What's it going to do? It's going to rock that sense of self and its certainty, Which is exactly what happens. And if it happens enough, And God willing, A person becomes interested enough in coming to the end of this fear of their own uncertainty and wants to understand the nature of this uncertainty, They come to a startling conclusion. And to get there, What is it? This false sense of certainty is inseparable from the suffering inherent in uncertainty. This false sense of security, This unending play between a mind that produces an image and then identifies with it. One unconscious divided mind creates an image that it requires in order to restore certainty to itself. It identifies with its own imagery, With its own plans, Its own dreams. It identifies with what it thinks is going to happen. And as it identifies with the conditions that are now required for its certainty, It is the same as entering into uncertainty in that moment because the conditions will change. And this is staggering for us to realize the security that we seek is not going to be found through controlling life. You may not outwardly be a control freak, But everybody inwardly is a control freak. What do you think the mind's always doing? And it's fascinating. If it can't control the circumstances, Then at least it's going to try to control its thoughts. And if it can't control its thoughts about the circumstances, Then it can hate itself for being out of control. And there's that certainty of who I am. It doesn't matter what I see in the mirror of the mind. That nature just requires something is there so that it can know itself either through its elation or through its depression. It makes no difference to that level of consciousness. But if we even begin to suspect that the only time we try to control people, The only time we try to control events or circumstances is because prior to that moment, Something has taken place and I see and feel strongly that things are out of control. Uncertainty is rampant. I must at all costs regain it. And this is why we treat each other as awfully as we do. We don't care what someone else feels. If we can just get them to submit, Then at least we have the certainty of knowing we're still in charge of something. So as difficult as it is, It is inevitable, God willing, For the actual soul that seeks something of the divine to see that I can't control this life. I want control. And it never dawns on us that this I that wants control needs control over what it imagines life is because that's where certainty lies for that nature. Certainty for that I lies in this divided relationship where it imagines what will make it whole. It feels confident and secure in that temporary wholeness until everything falls. A house divided cannot stand. A house set against itself will fall. And if we even suspect that is true, And this is difficult now, I always reach this point where I, You must make a transition with me, Not based on knowledge, But on experience. If I see that I'm uncomfortable because things are suddenly uncertain, It can be the simplest thing. I'm supposed to meet you at five. You don't show up. Now I'm uncertain about our relationship. Are you coming? Are you not? And in an uncertainty, I find the certainty of blaming and judging you for being untimely. You fill in the blanks, But at a certain point, A person has to see this keeps happening. And if I'm ever going to find real certainty, It's going to have to come from not just looking someplace else, But within another nature altogether. And I can't come to that nature. I can't come to that new quietness by thought. But yet, It is in seeing how useless thought has been, How painful it is to wake up and wish the day wasn't going to be the day it is. How can I know what the day is like unless something in me is certain that that day will be this way? And because I don't want it that way, Now I'm uncertain about going into it because it's not going to unfold the way it should. You have to see this mess, Not just see it, You have to experience it consciously so that you realize no explanation that you have or that I have, No matter how subtle it is. No matter how many times we rejoin ourselves to this justification of that, No matter what, It is never going to bring about, It's never going to capture the required relationship with the full breadth of life. It will never participate in the circulation, In the celestial movement of these constant conditions because it will always be apart from them, Measuring and comparing them to what it expects. So we have to, We start to see, I'm not going to capture this certainty. That's all I know to do. I revisit the past because of something stuck in my psychological tooth where it's still uncertain. I don't know why this happened. I don't know why I felt that way. I don't know why you did this. What am I looking for when I revisit the past? The mind is looking to restore a certainty to itself, For itself, That only exists when that same mind reimagines or revisits the very past that is the source of its uncertainty, That is the very image of what has upset it. And that mind never sees its own activity. So we come to this startling conclusion that real certainty is not an idea. It's certainly not a condition that one can grasp. Think about this with me. For a minute, Can you see that a simple blade of grass, As it comes out of the ground, Exists as it does because of this infinite array of timeless forces that have coincided in that exact moment to bring forth from something that is a part of that moment, That which will be the expression of that moment, For as long as that blade of grass stands, But even in its death, Which is the result of infinite forces coinciding to bring about a new creation, Death is a new creation, Not the end of creation. Death is part of the movement, A gust of wind, A grain of sand. None of these things exist without the extraordinary timeless conditions that bring them into existence. And those conditions never stop changing. The will of heaven never stops acting on the will of earth. And it is in that relationship, In the certainty, I'm going to make a leap here, In the certainty of love, In the certainty of our capacity as human beings, Made in the image of the divine, To experience ourselves as part of that perfect set of conditions that never stop bringing forth a new creation. So that this certainty is not anything the mind will ever imagine. It is born out of an awareness that no one condition is going to bring us this security, But rather we find the security through this tenuous attempt to ascend into this recognition that I'm suffering because I know I shouldn't have to suffer. I'm suffering because I believe the things should not be the way they are. You tell me what you suffer over. But instead of seeing that that suffering is the flip side, The vacillation of this false certainty, That same consciousness that creates the false certainty and the sense of self-connected to it, The exact same consciousness will just do what? It will come up with something else for you to be certain about. How terrible they are, How terrible you are, How unfair life is. As extraordinary as it is to see, There is no negative state that isn't born out of certainty. Can you imagine? I know I should feel bad. Why? Because something in me knows that you shouldn't have said that. And how does it know that you shouldn't have said that? Because it's comparing what you said to what you should have said. I hope you're following this. So that all of this sets the stage, Seeing what I'm describing for the collapse, Not just of this uncertainty, But the collapse of false certainty at the same time. The collapse of this identification with a set of sensations that only exist because of an unseen conflict between a mind that first imagines what it needs to be certain and then meets the conditions that challenge it. And it is that unconscious nature that is in ceaseless turmoil, Never bringing an end to the comparison it makes without you being even aware of it, That this is right and that's wrong. And if it's right, I'm certain, I'm comfortable. If it's wrong, I'm uncertain, I'm uncomfortable. And it goes on and on and on. Here's the main point. Uncertainty, Instead of being the problem, Becomes the passage. Uncertainty, Instead of being the problem, Becomes the passageway. The passageway to what? To recognizing that in this moment of uncertainty, My identification with whatever it is that's creating this conflict, That's the problem. Being identified with something that I was certain about, And now I see, To whatever extent I do, Is actually the source of this uncertainty. And this circle of self will keep going until, By the grace of God, Something in us becomes aware of the moment as it actually is. Let's bring up the key lesson. I want to—it's a bit of a summary. It's also a good encapsulation of what it is that we've been looking at. I'll wait for Katie to put it up on the board. There it is. Don't think. Feel. Don't try to understand. Feel what understanding you can as it comes from this, And I'll explain it to help that process. Learn to answer the true need of the moment by attending only to what it asks of you. And inseparable from this new intention, Drop any trouble question posed by a disquieted mind that can't see, Let alone realize, How it disturbs itself seeking relief from its own unrest. Back to the first sentence. Learn to answer the true need of the moment by attending only to what it asks of you. What is the—see, We take our thought about the moment to be the moment itself. We take our thoughts about the moment to be the nature of the moment. Our thoughts about the moment is not the nature of the moment until we begin to identify with our own thoughts and then take that sensation to be the moment we're in. Can you see that your thoughts about a moment are not the moment, That that conditions whatever it is that's taking place with a conditioned nature that already knows how that moment was supposed to be? If I learn to answer the true need of the moment and what it asks of me, It means that I'm always in the awareness of what the moment is revealing within me about me. It is always revealing what is within me and going on about me. Why is it doing that? Because it is a living moment. It is a presence, An intelligence that never stops enjoining all that it has created for the sake of revealing not just what it has created, But in our instance, The consciousness that has come out of that creation that is intended to participate, Listen, In what the moment is asking of me. Do you believe for a moment that it's asking you to suffer that unconscious nature? What kind of God would it be who's saying, Listen, Guy, I really want you to hate somebody. What kind of divine life, How would love ever approach someone and say, Listen, Here's what I need you to do. I need you to go back into the past, Feel that pain, And then want to punish yourself or that person again. How could we for a split second believe that life in that moment is asking us to attend to something that rends us the minute we give our attention to it? If we have the smallest, Literally spiritual common sense, We can recognize that that which tells me the answer to this pain is not just to identify with the conditions, But to strengthen the sense of a pain self by struggling with those circumstances that only exist in that moment as they do, Because something in me is revisiting and reliving that, Those thoughts. The true need of the moment, What's it asking of me? It's asking me to participate in the moment. That's the true need of the moment. The will of heaven upon the will of earth. It's asking me to participate in that relationship so that the need of the moment is inseparable from the will of the moment. And what is the moment will? Look around you as above, So below. What the moment wills is rebirth. What the moment wills is the advent of a new conception, Not the continuation of an old consciousness, Resisting the conditions that challenge its identity. And though we don't hear it, And I know we don't because it's not with our ears that we hear it, The moment never stops speaking to us. The moment speaks in terms of revelation. The moment speaks in terms of revelation. And revelation is always greater than any thought will ever contain, Because revelation is the whole, The holy moment, Not just what is acting upon it, But what is being acted on. And if we can see any of that is true, Then we can start to do what? Here comes this question, What do I do? Do what about what, Guy? About this uncertainty. What do I do about it? And in that moment, The question belongs to a level of consciousness that proves to itself by that question that it knows how the moment should be. And so you've got false certainty going into uncertainty, Uncertainty back into false certainty. In this pong, Painful ping pong, Action of an unconscious mind, Producing the sense of self that it requires without having any awareness at all of what it's doing to us or to our potential as a human being. The pain of uncertainty is not the proof that something's wrong. The pain of uncertainty is not the proof that something's wrong. Rather, It is the evidence that something greater than our present level of understanding is trying to reach us and teach us about our own level of understanding that has produced that painful sense of uncertainty and the identification with it. Here I am, I don't know what to do with myself. This was supposed to go this way. It didn't go that way. Oh my God, The news that I just got about my health. Did you hear what they said about you? Uncertainty, Uncertainty must restore. And the only thing that you restore is through an unconscious agreement, The reincarnation of that unconscious nature responsible for that false certainty and uncertainty and their endless vacillation that makes a victim of the soul unwittingly participating in it. Uncertainty is not the proof that something's wrong. It's trying to bring us into an awareness where we can have a new relationship with life itself by participating in the presence of that moment in which all of this is being revealed. On the other hand, Real certainty, Which is what we're looking at, Real certainty is the presence of an awareness, A grounded attention, If you will, That because it is a participant in the holy moment of life, In the presence, Because it is practicing the presence of the moment with a capital P, Because it is doing that, It's willing to meet life as it is. Because it understands that life as it is, Is not condemning what it wants. Rather, Life as it is, Is the fulfillment of its true need of its true security. Then you are a participant in the love of God. When you imagine love, You imagine the sense of self that is derived from it. And you will despise anything that gets in the way of what you've imagined love is, Or how you identify with it. So what is the uptake on this talk that I now have to bring an end to? If you've understood me, We must at least attempt to begin to consciously suffer uncertainty. We must meet that feeling of uncertainty as it rushes in, And it does, Doesn't it, Bringing in that very strong sense of self, That suffering. We must meet that uncertainty without resistance. And we certainly must not try to escape it. Because if we will suffer, If we will bear consciously this awareness of uncertainty, It will unfold and begin to realize, Reveal to us that this uncertainty can't exist in without a sense of self that we did not know we were identified with, That is the true source of it. And then we begin to see the opposites as a singularity. And in that singularity, We begin, We enter into this awareness that I'm trying to talk to you about, An awareness that doesn't belong to this world, And yet is a part of it, And yet cannot be taken from us. Because it is, In one respect, Apart from this world, It is in it, But not of it. This is where certainty lies. I hope that I've been able to help you see a few things today about this nature. And if you've been able to see a few things, That's all that's required. Because if you have seen, You will want to see more deeply. And the more deeply you see, The more truth you see in this nature, In your true nature, That it is constantly being brought into, Along with you, A relationship designed for you to succeed at realizing this certainty that transcends thought.

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